Shopping carts for use at supermarkets or the like are widely known in the art. These carts normally include a large basket supported upon a wheeled frame. The basket is formed with a rear panel that is adapted to pivot into the basket when the front side of another cart is nested, enabling numerous carts to be stored in a compact manner, forming a row. The shopping cart may also comprise more than one basket mounted one on top of the other.
A smaller compartment is generally provided at the cart rear, nearby the handles. As disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,423,882 (Stover et al, 1984), the compartment may be fixed. Otherwise, the compartment collapses when the carts of the like are nested together, such as in U.S. Pat. No. 5,458,347 (Chiv, 1995). As also illustrated in these two U.S. patents, the smaller compartment may further comprise two leg holes for seating a child in the compartment. However, when no child is seated, small objects or groceries present in the compartment may fall out.
To overcome that problem, the small compartment generally comprises a pivotal seat panel that can be placed in an up position for closing the leg holes, or in a down position, for seating the child. The more basic seat panels known in the art have no particular mechanism. Seat panels of this type are hingely connected to the rear side of the basket and tend to naturally return to a down position by gravity and rest on the shelf wall. With this type of seat panel, leg holes present in the rear wall of the shopping cart tend to be open unless the seat panel is put manually in an up position where it covers the legs holes. When the seat panel is not brought in an up position, small objects or groceries inside the collapsible compartment can fall on the ground.
Improved seat panels of the prior art may then comprise a closing mechanism, such as the one disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,537,413 (Rehrig, 1985). Rehrig particularly discloses a closing mechanism which comprises a lifting bar assembly for the seat back panel and child seat (see FIGS. 2 and 3). The assembly comprises a reinforcing rod which cooperates with a lifting rod to automatically raise and lower the child seat in relation to the position of the seat back panel (FIG. 3). Apart from increasing greatly the cart manufacturing costs because of its numerous small parts, this lifting bar assembly may also render the use of the seat panel uneasy.
There are also spring driven seat panels, such as the ones described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,471,90 (Trubiano, 1984); U.S. Pat. No. 5,348,323 (Trubiano, 1994), U.S. Pat. No. 5,368,318 (Rehrig et al., 1994) or U.S. Pat. No. 5,651,557 (De Stefano, 1997). The springs disclosed therein are often spirally wound springs secured to the seat panel to urge the panel against the rear wall of the cart to obstruct the leg holes. As disclosed by Trubiano (1994), the panel may further include a retention means in the form of a hook (FIG. 4, 26) for maintaining the seat panel in the horizontal position.
On its side Rehrig et al. (1994) cited above discloses a seat panel having its rear edge hingely connected to a hinge wire of the cart (FIG. 8, 27) and a holding mechanism incorporated into the hinged connection for positively automatically holding leg opening cover stationary in its upstanding covering position once it is placed therein and until it is manually relieved to return to its non-covering position. The holding mechanism comprises cantilevered leaf springs extending into hinge slots of the seat panel. Each leaf spring has a flat portion and a semi-cylindrical portion extending therefrom. Flat portion is friction fit into a thin flat slot provided in the wall of hinge slot. Semi-cylindrical portion extends into hinge slot and partially surrounds hinge wire. So configured, leaf springs permit leg opening cover to rotate relatively freely through most of its arc. The hinge of the seat also presents a flat portion on its outer round surface (FIG. 7, 53b). As taught on column 7, lines 36 to 37 of this patent, this flat portion provides the necessary clearance for the mounting operation.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,540,240 (Nadeau et al.) discloses a plastic shopping cart having a collapsible compartment and a seat panel. The vertical position of the seat panel is urged thanks to a leaf spring. The shopping cart also comprises a seat shelf including a cam like member for initiating the rotation of the seat panel when the seat shelf and the rest of the compartment are collapsed.
One drawback encountered with certain spring driven seat panels of the prior art is their potential to inadvertently and suddenly close up the holes and pinch the fingers or hand of the customer. Some of these spring driven seat panels may thus be potentially dangerous for the customer.
The spring driven seat panels also have the disadvantage of adding small mechanical parts to the seat panel, such as spring or retaining hook that increase the cart production costs and assembling time. Also these small mechanical parts are prone to break prematurely by fatigue failure or by handling the cart roughly.
As can be appreciated there is still presently a need for a collapsible compartment of a shopping cart, provided with a simple, safe and less expensive mechanism that will allow the seat panel to be readily positioned vertically and closing the leg holes when a shopping cart is taken out from a row of nested shopping carts.